And Fairfield Stadium/Gator Bowl/TIAA Bank Field has been around in some form since the 1920's (preceding the Jaguars by almost two lifetimes), so what's your point? (insert half-baked Jacksonville sucks rant here)

Uggh. The Gator Bowl was torn down with the exception of one part and rebuilt for the Jags. The Thunder moved into an existing facility. That was the only point.

The stadium in Jacksonville wasn't "built" when the other stated stadiums were. It's actually a re-build of the old municipal stadium or Gator Bowl.

The only part that was left was the upper deck of the west side of the stadium which included the ramps. The rest was built from the ground up.

Did you forget about the land the stadium sits on? Parking lots, infrastructure, etc.? Still much cheaper than most of the other cities had to shell out.

And let's also not forget that, to the best of my knowledge, we've spent very little - if any - money from the general fund on stadium improvements. It's all come from the bed tax, which has long-been legally committed to the stadium complex, long before Shad Khan purchased the team.

Rebuilding old Gator Bowl turned out to be bargain; number of seats still an issue

Former Jacksonville mayor Jake Godbold still remembers the message from the late Bob Irsay when the Baltimore Colts owner made his celebrated helicopter arrival at the old Gator Bowl in 1979.

“He put his big arms around me and said, ‘Mayor, let me tell you something. Before you get a team, tear this monster down and start over again,’ ″ Godbold remembers.

The message was simple for Jacksonville: No new stadium, no NFL team.

Related: Twenty years ago, how upstart Jacksonville won an NFL franchise

Related: Jaguars face new challenge after 20 years: Sustainability

City leaders listened. While the stadium wasn’t completely torn down - the upper deck of the old Gator Bowl was preserved - the deal to build what is now called EverBank Field for $121 million kept Jacksonville in the expansion race. Twenty years ago, and 14 years after Irsay’s helicopter visit, Jacksonville was awarded an NFL franchise on Nov. 30, 1993.

By today’s standards, in the era of billion-dollar price tags for new stadiums, rebuilding the Gator Bowl was a bargain.

In Cleveland, they are spending $120 million on improvements for a stadium that opened in 1999.

And the Jacksonville City Council recently approved a deal to add $63 million in improvements to EverBank Field, including the world’s largest scoreboards.

It’s the second $63 million upgrade to the stadium since it was built. The first was for the Super Bowl in 1994 so by next year, the stadium that cost $121 million to build will have $126 million in upgrades. And that doesn’t count the $10 million owner Shad Khan spent upgrading the interior of the stadium, including the locker, weight and training rooms. Khan is also kicking in $20 million for the current upgrade.

Still, 20 years ago, spending $121 million on building the stadium - with the Jaguars picking up cost overruns - was not an easy sell.

The deal and Jacksonville’s NFL dream almost died when team owner Wayne Weaver rejected the $112 million project and pulled out on July 21, 1993.

“The deal fell apart over the cost of the stadium,″ said Carl Cannon, the former Times-Union publisher who helped get the two sides together and also led the club seat ticket-selling campaign that helped put Jacksonville over the top.

About a month later, the new deal was crafted and approved by the City Council by a 14-4 vote.

In retrospect, though, the stadium was a double-edged sword.

The 76,766 permanent seats were too many for an NFL team in a small market, especially after the novelty wore off and the Jaguars’ playoff run of the early years ended.

The old Gator Bowl had more than 80,000 seats and a similar size stadium was necessary to keep the Florida-Georgia college football game in Jacksonville. The new stadium was built with temporary seating to boost capacity to about 82,000.

The large capacity helped the city host a Super Bowl and has allowed the city to bid for the national championship college football game in 2016 and 2017.

It also made the Jaguars a very lucrative franchise at the beginning because the stadium had 10,000 club seats, a premium concept that was just invented a decade earlier in Miami.

With most of the teams still playing in old stadiums that didn’t have club seats, the Jaguars became the second-highest revenue team in the league.

But trying to sell that many tickets has been a challenge for the franchise over the years.

With so many tickets available, fans know they can give up their season tickets when the team is losing and then buy them again if the team starts winning. In the ticket-selling business, it’s called churn.

Former owner Wayne Weaver tried all kinds of ways to sell tickets, including having Winn-Dixie buy unsold tickets and give them away, until he decided to cover up almost 10,000 seats to lower the capacity to 67,246.

That made it easier to avoid television blackouts, but it also hurt the image of the team and the city.

“The biggest negative of having too many seats is that the national media jumped all over us for covering up seats,″ said Gator Bowl president Rick Catlett, who played a key role in helping the city land an NFL franchise. “It galvanized the national press to point at Jacksonville, even though three or four other teams were having a harder time selling tickets.″

The new stadium also has a no-frills look and a generic feel. Some of the newer stadiums feature such attractions as the lighthouse in New England and the pirate ship in Tampa Bay.

Jaguars president Mark Lamping said the stadium lacks a specific personality and adds, “There’s nothing in the stadium that tells you that you are a beautiful city with so much to offer.″

The newest upgrades, expected to be completed in time for the 2014 NFL season, will give the stadium a wow factor. The last round of upgrades included state-of-the-art scoreboards that are now obsolete and will be replaced by the two biggest scoreboards of their kind in the world.

To help give the stadium a Jacksonville feel, about 7,000 permanent seats will be taken out to make room for a 42,000-square-foot fan zone in the north end zone that will include water features.

Lamping said those water features, which could include fountains and palm trees, haven’t been designed yet, but will emphasize that Jacksonville has the ocean, beaches and the St. Johns River. It’s also likely to look good on television.

Taking out the 7,000 seats - although the city will have to pay an estimated $376,000 to put in temporary seating each year for the Florida-Georgia game - will cut down on the number of tarps and may do away with them altogether.

These new features will give the stadium a different look, though maintaining a stadium never ends. Funds from a hotel bed tax are committed to the stadium, so future improvements are expected to be financed without dipping into the general fund.

“If you keep maintaining it, it will be in good shape for a long time,″ Catlett said.

And Fairfield Stadium/Gator Bowl/TIAA Bank Field has been around in some form since the 1920's (preceding the Jaguars by almost two lifetimes), so what's your point? (insert half-baked Jacksonville sucks rant here)

Uggh. The Gator Bowl was torn down with the exception of one part and rebuilt for the Jags. The Thunder moved into an existing facility. That was the only point.

Lake said it, but it’s worth saying again: it was a building built to NBA standards with the intent of luring a team. There’s a reason they pushed hard for (and got) the opportunity to house the Pelicans (then the Hornets) after Katrina.

Then when the Sonics were looking to move, the Sonics owners convinced OKC to renovate the building for them.

And Fairfield Stadium/Gator Bowl/TIAA Bank Field has been around in some form since the 1920's (preceding the Jaguars by almost two lifetimes), so what's your point? (insert half-baked Jacksonville sucks rant here)

Uggh. The Gator Bowl was torn down with the exception of one part and rebuilt for the Jags. The Thunder moved into an existing facility. That was the only point.

Lake said it, but it’s worth saying again: it was a building built to NBA standards with the intent of luring a team. There’s a reason they pushed hard for (and got) the opportunity to house the Pelicans (then the Hornets) after Katrina.

Then when the Sonics were looking to move, the Sonics owners convinced OKC to renovate the building for them.

For the record, I didn't bring up the Thunder. I just responded to a comment about their arena.

And Fairfield Stadium/Gator Bowl/TIAA Bank Field has been around in some form since the 1920's (preceding the Jaguars by almost two lifetimes), so what's your point? (insert half-baked Jacksonville sucks rant here)

Uggh. The Gator Bowl was torn down with the exception of one part and rebuilt for the Jags. The Thunder moved into an existing facility. That was the only point.

Lake said it, but it’s worth saying again: it was a building built to NBA standards with the intent of luring a team. There’s a reason they pushed hard for (and got) the opportunity to house the Pelicans (then the Hornets) after Katrina.

Then when the Sonics were looking to move, the Sonics owners convinced OKC to renovate the building for them.

For the record, I didn't bring up the Thunder. I just responded to a comment about their arena.

The thing is....I don’t think the Thunder situation is bad for OKC. I think that it’s worked out for them.